According to a new study from Johns Hopkins University, college-educated women are more likely to have a first child out of wedlock. Titled women are also more likely to be married at the time of their second birth .
The findings of sociologist Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University have been published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science .
Higher percentage than ever
The proportion of first births out of wedlock has increased at all educational levels, but the increase has been greater among women with college degrees.
The majority of women without a high school degree or a general equivalency diploma were not married when their children were first born. Women with a high school degree were less likely to be unmarried than women without a degree; at least half of the women with a secondary education were not married at their first birth.
In 1996, only 4% of 30-year-old women with a college education had their first babies without being married . Twenty years later, that percentage has multiplied by six to 24.5%. Among all women in their 30s who have a first out-of-wedlock birth, women with college degrees are more likely to be married at the time of their second birth.
Women with a college education are also somewhat more likely than women without a college degree to have had the same partner for both children.
Cherlin has compared demographics from three major American surveys, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the National Longitudinal Survey of Adolescent-to-Adult Health, and the National Survey of Family Growth, and points out several likely reasons for the marked change, primarily: problems. of money, including college debt and lower financial returns from a college degree, and the widespread cultural acceptance of single-parent and unmarried couples living together .